The Colombian Army’s Third Brigade, based in Cali, was deeply penetrated by the drug trafficking mafia, according to a recent criminal investigation.

“What the prosecutors’ investigation has shown as it progresses,” reported Semana magazine, “is that ‘Don Diego’ [a drug mafia kingpin] didn’t just buy these officers in exchange for one-time favors, but that many of them belonged to his organization. They were part of the mafia and put their jobs in the Army at its service.” Brigade commander Gómez Vergara resigned August 16, 2007, as a result of the investigation, and a dozen other officers have been arrested or are under investigation.

Colonel Alvaro Quijano – who served as an instructor at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as School of the Americas - was arrested on August 15, 2007. The former chief of the brigade’s operations, Lt. Colonel Javier Escobar Martínez, has also been arrested and accused of mobilizing army units to protect the drug trafficker. Quijano, former commander of Colombia’s Special Forces in the Valle department, and another accused officer, Major Wilmer Mora Daza, taught “peacekeeping operations” and “democratic sustainment” at the SOA/WHINSEC from 2003-2004.

The commander of the Army’s Third Division (General Hernando Pérez Molina, another SOA/WHINSEC grad), to which the Third Brigade belongs, was relieved of his post.

Last year, Colombian army officers from the Third Brigade ambushed an elite, U.S.-trained anti-drug squad in the Valle town of Jamundí, killing ten policemen. The leader of the attack, Colonel Bayron Carvajal, now under arrest, was also a graduate of the School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC).